The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1887-01-09
AN ENGLISH CONVlCT'S WAY OF
TEACHING BY EXAMPLE


Way of the Transgressor is Hard-A
Backhanded Method-Tears Shed by
Young Reprobates.
An English ex-convict tells this story to
reporter concerning a school for thieves
which he has the reputation of keeping:
"Oh, it isn't a school at all, he replied,
with a laugh, land it is all nonsense calling
it one. 1t got the name of being one a long
time ago and it has stuck to it ever since. IL
became known that used to have lads up
here of evenings, and l was waited upon
by police inspector. Il have come to warn
you,' says he, that we have information that
you keep school for the instruction of
young thieves. III it is you will have to
put a stop TO it or you will find yourself in
your old quarters 'All right says i,
you shall come and hear for yourself what
it is / teach them There would be lot of
good in that says he; there would be
rather short attendance if it was known that
l was to be present. Besides, if they did
come, you wouldn't be such fool as to give
'em their or'nary lessons. | said, says l:
That you should hear for yourself, not that
you should be seen, If you wouldn't mind
passing an hour this evening in that back at
tic; there is only a thin partition between it
and this one, and lots of chinks you can peep
through. You can satisfy yourself and no
body but you and me need be- any wiser
BAcKHANDED WAY.
"And the Inspector agreed to the plan, and
came and slipped into the back attic at the
time mentioned, and there he staid till the
entertainment was all over and the boys had
gone. And then he came out, and says he:
Il shan't trouble you any further, jerry. 1t
is rather a backhanded way you have got in
getting at them, but il is better than no way
at all nd ba vii me
night, and haven't been interfered with by
the police since. And so it Is what may be
called backhanded way" continued Mr.
Duff, "and it isn't, praps, a respectable way,
and it might be objected that there is under
handedness and artfulness in it; but, what
odds about that so that good comes of ita 1t
isn't reading and writing that teach them
am far too ignorant n man for that. l tell
them stOries-stories of my life in the differ
ent prisons and of the crimes that got me
there That was the bait that | held out to
them when | first began to put the plan l
had long thought of in practice. They were
too young to know anything about me them
selves, but they had, no doubt, heard al
about me from the older hands-and there
are plenty of them living about here-and
they were proud OF the compliment when l
asked them to come up to my room, smoke a
pipe and hear me spin u yarn concerning my
life and adventures. And having been in
the crooked way ever since was Is till last
left Portland, when 1 was 81, you may
guess, and having a good memory, 1 had
plenty of stories to tell.
"But the stirring adventures and the
dare devil deeds, which, of course, they
liked to hear about, was only the sugar the
pill was coated with. What | wanted them
to understand without making too much of
it was that for every sixpenn'orth of pleas
ure obtained by crime it always, sooner or
later, meets with pounds worth of pun
ishment. 1t don't do to press this view of it
10 hard on them, or they will at once think
you are gammoning. The way is to put it so
that they find it out for themselves. They
sometimes make their comments to that effect
when have finished a story l have been tell
ing them. We'll, after all, Jerry, you didn't
get much of "a pull You paid pretty dear
for what you did get, jerry To which 1 re-
ply: Il never did get the pull, and always
paid dear for what got. l had twenty-six
years of it, and eighteen of these We're spent
in prison, and after all, here 1 am, making
footstools at two pence ha'penny each, and
working fourteen hours a day to earn enough
TO buy me a bit of victuals and pay my lodg-
ing, and | tell you L never was half as happy
in all my life
LESSONS OF EXPERIENCE.
at isn't only of my own experiences tell
Them" continued Jerry, the schoolmaster
"While | was at Dartmoor something went
wrong with my nsides, and was put in the
infirmary n nurse, and was there eighteen
months. | know lots of stories that the
patients, being there sick and brought low,
have told me, some of the men being the most
wicked and desperate; but it was always the
same tale with them when it came to the last
They are the yarns. they call them, they
like best to hear, though perhaps you
wouldn't think it. But it is a fact. The
worst young reprobates will go to the play
and shed tears over the affecting parts of q
piece that pleases them, and go again and
again to see it. I've had them pipe their eye
here many a time when I've been telling them
of a dying prisoner-a young fellow, perhaps
and of the tender messages he sent to hi
mother and those at home.
"And, what Is more to the purpose" +" said
Jerry Duff, proudly, and with something
very like tears glistening in his own eyes
ave had many a one come creeping bach
here, shy and ashamed like, when the other,
were out Of sight, and wanting to know if
knew any more stories like the last and, il
SO, would mind telling him all by himself
and ON the quiet. never say nay, you may
depend sir. They are the fish am angling
for in my backhanded way. They rare
but when they do bite they worth land
ing" I could do more than agree. and a
have already said, i shook hands with Jerry
Duff, and wished him better luck with hi
story telling. g.-London Telegraph,
Coal Dust and Seaweed.